L'évolution du Ducroire depuis ces quinze dernières années et les décisions prises sont-elles un gage d'avenir?

Abstract

Influenced by economy and trade habits, the trade credit sector is in constant change. After a complementary period between private credit insurer and public insurer, we faced in 1990’s a privatization trend and now we are in a market where private credit insurer and public credit insurer are competitors. The aim of this work is to explain how the Belgian public trade credit insurer became a major European actor in that sector.

The first part of this work is an overview and an explanation of the main concepts of the trade credit insurance with an introduction of the principles and missions. I will explain the different types of covers and the particularity between public and private trade credit insurers.

Then, I will introduce “l’Office national du Ducroire” which is a Belgian public trade credit insurer operating with state guarantee. I will analyze its evolution until now as well as the evolution of its competitors and its financial accounts/stability/structure. I will also compare the evolution of this public company with its competitors.

Finally, despite the world economic instability and its size comparing to the other major actors in that sector, we can admit that the strategic decisions made in the past by “l’Office national du Ducroire” were correct since they anticipated the different changes in the trade credit sector and they have been facing an economic growth for the last 15 years.